Post by swamprat on Aug 1, 2015 13:08:29 GMT -6
Is Our Universe a Fake?
Robert Lawrence Kuhn,
July 31, 2015
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of "Closer to Truth," a public television and multimedia program that features the world's leading thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions. Kuhn is co-editor, with John Leslie, of "The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything at All?" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). This article is based on a "Closer to Truth" episode produced and directed by Peter Getzels. Kuhn contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
I began bemused. The notion that humanity might be living in an artificial reality — a simulated universe — seemed sophomoric, at best science fiction.
But speaking with scientists and philosophers on "Closer to Truth," I realized that the notion that everything humans see and know is a gigantic computer game of sorts, the creation of supersmart hackers existing somewhere else, is not a joke. Exploring a "whole-world simulation," I discovered, is a deep probe of reality.
David Brin, sci-fi writer and space scientist, relates the Chinese parable of an emperor dreaming that he was a butterfly dreaming that he was an emperor. In contemporary versions, Brin said, it may be the year 2050 and people are living in a computer simulation of what life was like in the early 21st century — or it may be billions of years from now, and people are in a simulation of what primitive planets and people were once like.
Philosopher Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, describes a fake universe as a "richly detailed software simulation of people, including their historical predecessors, by a very technologically advanced civilization."
Bostrum is not saying that humanity is living in such a simulation. Rather, his "Simulation Argument" seeks to show that one of three possible scenarios must be true (assuming there are other intelligent civilizations):
1. All civilizations become extinct before becoming technologically mature;
2. All technologically mature civilizations lose interest in creating simulations;
3. Humanity is literally living in a computer simulation.
His point is that all cosmic civilizations either disappear (e.g., destroy themselves) before becoming technologically capable, or all decide not to generate whole-world simulations (e.g., decide such creations are not ethical, or get bored with them). The operative word is "all" — because if even one civilization anywhere in the cosmos could generate such simulations, then simulated worlds would multiply rapidly and almost certainly humanity would be in one.
As technology visionary Ray Kurzweil put it, "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high school student in another universe." (Given how things are going, he jokes, she may not get a good grade.)
How could people know?
If people are in a whole-world simulation, how could they know it? Brin suggests a "back door" in the simulation program that would enable the alleged programmers to control people (much like countries accuse each other of installing "back doors" in code to conduct espionage).
"If we are living in a simulation, then everything is software, including every atom in our bodies," Brin said, "and there may be 'back doors' that the programmers left ajar."
For a reality check, I visited Martin Rees, U.K. Astronomer Royal, a bold visionary and hard-nosed realist.
"Well, it's a bit flaky, but a fascinating idea," he said. "The real question is what are the limits of computing powers."
Astronomers are already doing simulations of parts of universes. "We can't do experiments on stars and galaxies," Rees explained, "but we can have a virtual universe in our computer, and calculate what happens if you crash galaxies together, evolve stars, etc. So, because we can simulate some cosmic features in a gross sense, we have to ask, 'As computers become vastly more powerful, what more could we simulate?'
Physicist Paul Davies has a different take. He uses simulation theory to tease out possible contradictions in the multiple universe (multiverse) theory, which is his countercultural challenge to today's mainstream cosmology.
"If you take seriously the theory of all possible universes, including all possible variations," Davies said, "at least some of them must have intelligent civilizations with enough computing power to simulate entire fake worlds. Simulated universes are much cheaper to make than the real thing, and so the number of fake universes would proliferate and vastly outnumber the real ones. And assuming we're just typical observers, then we're overwhelmingly likely to find ourselves in a fake universe, not a real one."
Davies concluded, "While multiple universes seem almost inevitable given our understanding of the Big Bang, using them to explain all existence is a dangerous, slippery slope, leading to apparently absurd conclusions."
Would the simulation argument relate to theism, the existence of God? Not necessarily.
Bostrum said, "the simulation hypothesis is not an alternative to theism or atheism. It could be a version of either — it's independent of whether God exists." While the simulation argument is "not an attempt to refute theism," he said, it would "imply a weaker form of a creation hypothesis," because the creator-simulators "would have some of the attributes we traditionally associate with God in the sense that they would have created our world."
They would be superintelligent, but they "wouldn't need unlimited or infinite minds." They could "intervene in the world, our experiential world, by manipulating the simulation. So they would have some of the capabilities of omnipotence in the sense that they could change anything they wanted about our world."
So even if this universe looks like it was created, neither scientists nor philosophers nor theologians could easily distinguish between the traditional creator God and hyper-advanced creator-simulators.
Personally, I do not think humanity is living in a whole-world simulation. But because the simulation argument seems to work, what it seems to do is to uncover deep discrepancies, or fundamental flaws, in how people think about deep reality — about this universe, multiple universes, consciousness, and even inferences for and against theism.
Something’s amiss.
Read more: www.space.com/30124-is-our-universe-a-fake.html
Robert Lawrence Kuhn,
July 31, 2015
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, writer and host of "Closer to Truth," a public television and multimedia program that features the world's leading thinkers exploring humanity's deepest questions. Kuhn is co-editor, with John Leslie, of "The Mystery of Existence: Why Is There Anything at All?" (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). This article is based on a "Closer to Truth" episode produced and directed by Peter Getzels. Kuhn contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
I began bemused. The notion that humanity might be living in an artificial reality — a simulated universe — seemed sophomoric, at best science fiction.
But speaking with scientists and philosophers on "Closer to Truth," I realized that the notion that everything humans see and know is a gigantic computer game of sorts, the creation of supersmart hackers existing somewhere else, is not a joke. Exploring a "whole-world simulation," I discovered, is a deep probe of reality.
David Brin, sci-fi writer and space scientist, relates the Chinese parable of an emperor dreaming that he was a butterfly dreaming that he was an emperor. In contemporary versions, Brin said, it may be the year 2050 and people are living in a computer simulation of what life was like in the early 21st century — or it may be billions of years from now, and people are in a simulation of what primitive planets and people were once like.
Philosopher Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, describes a fake universe as a "richly detailed software simulation of people, including their historical predecessors, by a very technologically advanced civilization."
Bostrum is not saying that humanity is living in such a simulation. Rather, his "Simulation Argument" seeks to show that one of three possible scenarios must be true (assuming there are other intelligent civilizations):
1. All civilizations become extinct before becoming technologically mature;
2. All technologically mature civilizations lose interest in creating simulations;
3. Humanity is literally living in a computer simulation.
His point is that all cosmic civilizations either disappear (e.g., destroy themselves) before becoming technologically capable, or all decide not to generate whole-world simulations (e.g., decide such creations are not ethical, or get bored with them). The operative word is "all" — because if even one civilization anywhere in the cosmos could generate such simulations, then simulated worlds would multiply rapidly and almost certainly humanity would be in one.
As technology visionary Ray Kurzweil put it, "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high school student in another universe." (Given how things are going, he jokes, she may not get a good grade.)
How could people know?
If people are in a whole-world simulation, how could they know it? Brin suggests a "back door" in the simulation program that would enable the alleged programmers to control people (much like countries accuse each other of installing "back doors" in code to conduct espionage).
"If we are living in a simulation, then everything is software, including every atom in our bodies," Brin said, "and there may be 'back doors' that the programmers left ajar."
For a reality check, I visited Martin Rees, U.K. Astronomer Royal, a bold visionary and hard-nosed realist.
"Well, it's a bit flaky, but a fascinating idea," he said. "The real question is what are the limits of computing powers."
Astronomers are already doing simulations of parts of universes. "We can't do experiments on stars and galaxies," Rees explained, "but we can have a virtual universe in our computer, and calculate what happens if you crash galaxies together, evolve stars, etc. So, because we can simulate some cosmic features in a gross sense, we have to ask, 'As computers become vastly more powerful, what more could we simulate?'
Physicist Paul Davies has a different take. He uses simulation theory to tease out possible contradictions in the multiple universe (multiverse) theory, which is his countercultural challenge to today's mainstream cosmology.
"If you take seriously the theory of all possible universes, including all possible variations," Davies said, "at least some of them must have intelligent civilizations with enough computing power to simulate entire fake worlds. Simulated universes are much cheaper to make than the real thing, and so the number of fake universes would proliferate and vastly outnumber the real ones. And assuming we're just typical observers, then we're overwhelmingly likely to find ourselves in a fake universe, not a real one."
Davies concluded, "While multiple universes seem almost inevitable given our understanding of the Big Bang, using them to explain all existence is a dangerous, slippery slope, leading to apparently absurd conclusions."
Would the simulation argument relate to theism, the existence of God? Not necessarily.
Bostrum said, "the simulation hypothesis is not an alternative to theism or atheism. It could be a version of either — it's independent of whether God exists." While the simulation argument is "not an attempt to refute theism," he said, it would "imply a weaker form of a creation hypothesis," because the creator-simulators "would have some of the attributes we traditionally associate with God in the sense that they would have created our world."
They would be superintelligent, but they "wouldn't need unlimited or infinite minds." They could "intervene in the world, our experiential world, by manipulating the simulation. So they would have some of the capabilities of omnipotence in the sense that they could change anything they wanted about our world."
So even if this universe looks like it was created, neither scientists nor philosophers nor theologians could easily distinguish between the traditional creator God and hyper-advanced creator-simulators.
Personally, I do not think humanity is living in a whole-world simulation. But because the simulation argument seems to work, what it seems to do is to uncover deep discrepancies, or fundamental flaws, in how people think about deep reality — about this universe, multiple universes, consciousness, and even inferences for and against theism.
Something’s amiss.
Read more: www.space.com/30124-is-our-universe-a-fake.html